OpenVMS modernization

OpenVMS is a computer operating system for use in general-purpose computing. It is the successor to the VMS Operating System (VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS), that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation, and first released in 1977 for its series of VAX-11 minicomputers.

A lot of companies still use for their legacy system OpenVMS, but it is an obsolete technology: that means that it is harder to maintain the applications, to update them, to also take the opportunity to include new features.

Any company is a continuous changing creature and therefore keeping and obsolete system (that cannot be changed easily) can create issues to the success of the company.

OpenVMS can be modernize replacing with different and more modern operative systems like Windows or Linux

OpenVMS is a multitasking and multiprocessing operating system based on VMS; it was renamed OpenVMS when it was redeveloped for the Alpha processor.

End of OpenVMS?

Hewlett-Packard expects to end support for OpenVMS, a system long valued for its reliability and breakthrough features, in 2020.

Although they changed directions and licensed OpenVMS to a third part company that promised to continue to give support, it is a serious risk for an organization to keep their systems on OpenVMS, because the support can end in any moment

How to modernize?

Porting OpenVMS systems to another platform will entail much work. Therefore the first step is to make a plan that step by step will bring your systems to be more modern.

OpenVMS often supports mission critical applications: you need someone very expert to reingegneering the entire system and do the porting to more modern ones.

What is OpenVMS?

OpenVMS is a multitasking and multiprocessing operating system based on VMS; it was renamed OpenVMS when it was redeveloped for the Alpha processor.

The "Open" suggests the added support for the UNIX-like interfaces of the POSIX standard. Programs written to the POSIX standard, which includes a set of standard C language programming functions, can be ported to any POSIX-supporting computer platform. Formerly a 32-bit operating system, more recent versions of OpenVMS support 64-bit instructions.